Ukraine’s huge seed bank is in danger of being destroyed forever

The entrance to the World Seed Bank Svalbard Global Seed Vault – Photo: WIKIPEDIA

Ukraine’s seed bank is the 10th largest (in terms of size) in the world.

In early May, a Ukrainian research facility and seed bank – based in the city of Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine – was subjected to intense bombing by Russian forces.

Associated Reuters said damage could not be determined at the site, and the Crop Trust said only that the research facility had been hacked, but declined to provide further details, citing security reasons.

International Organization Crop Trust – an agency of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization based in Germany, whose sole purpose is to protect plant diversity across the globe.

Fortunately Ukraine was able to send 4% of the 150,000 copied seeds, representing nearly 2,000 of its crops, to the World Seed Bank Svalbard Global Seed Vault, located in Norway. It is the world’s largest and most important seed concurrent storage facility.

In total, Svalbard’s warehouse preserves more than 1 million seed samples copied from around the world in a vault built on the slopes of the Arctic ridge.

Researchers rely on the diverse genetic material that seed banks store, to create plants that can withstand climate change or disease.

Seed banks are becoming increasingly important to ensure that enough food is produced each season to feed the world’s 7.9 billion people as the weather turns increasingly inhospitable.

Mr. Stefan Schmitz, chief executive officer of the Crop Trust, told Reuters: “A seed bank is a kind of life insurance. It would be a tragic loss if Ukraine’s seed bank were to be destroyed.”

Crop Trust and Norway ready to support Ukraine

The Crop Trust organization is ready to provide capital to Ukraine to reproduce the seed. However, Ukraine has not yet been able to solve the security and logistical problems associated with war, as well as growing crops according to the natural cycles of crops. That is to say, it is very difficult for the country to speed up and set up the seed replication process.

Mr. Schmitz estimates that about 10% of Ukraine’s seeds could be copied within a year. These seeds need to be planted, grown and harvested at the right time, before the seeds can be genetically copied and sent to the Svalbard repository.

An urgent measure would be to eliminate genetic code duplication and only move the seed collection to the Svalbard repository, but Mr. Schmitz said this may not be feasible in wartime.

Grethe Helene Evjen, a senior adviser to the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, said: “Agricultural seeds in Ukraine have their roots in prehistoric times, and the department is ready to help Ukraine clone and archive them all. its copy seed in Svalbard. However, Norway has yet to receive a request from the Ukrainian authorities.”

The war in Syria provided a lesson in the importance of seed storage at the World Seed Bank Svalbard in Norway.

In 2015, Svalbard Bank was able to send replicated samples of wheat, barley and grass seeds suitable for arid regions to researchers in Lebanon, after a seed bank near the city Syria’s Aleppo is destroyed.

The seeds of Syria are from the Fertile Crescent, an area where settled agriculture is believed to have emerged.